Polish the Stars
by settler
Summary: Things never turn out quite the way Lee expects them to. Academy fic, eventual KL.
1. Chapter 1

**Polishing the Stars**

Lee had wanted to be a historian since he was ten.

He'd been reading books on colonial heroes and the cylon war, and then acting out the plots with Zach after school each day. Zach always wanted to be the colonial soldier, a hero, just like his dad. And Lee had always had a soft spot for his baby brother, so he'd settled for playing the cylon.

Robotic movements, fiendish plans, and a jerky, violent death were interesting in their own right, he decided, and it was okay not to play the hero, because the grin on Zach's face after every game, the worshipful look in his eyes, was more than enough.

It wasn't the players that mattered so much, in Lee's opinion. The story was far more important.

And then his parents got divorced and Lee stopped believing in heroes.

While all the other boys were daydreaming of vipers, he was hitting the books. While they were playing in the arcade sims, he was hitting the gym. He got top marks, and an excellent physical evaluation, and two days after he send in the necessary materials, the Academy accepted his application to study colonial history.

All cadets were given one year of basic courses before they were separated into their areas of specialty. That meant that future academics trained and studied alongside future mechanics and marines. It also meant a lot of bluster and competition among the cadets, because only the very best were picked for the most popular specialty areas.

You could always tell which students were the aspiring doctors, which wanted diplomatic postings, which dreamed of being viper jocks. Lee watched them all, because people were what made up stories, and it was important for him to know how they worked.

Halfway through his first term he could guess who was going to be placed where. By the end of first term, he could anticipate what most of them would do and say in a given situation. There where a few that stood out, and he watched those carefully. Karl, the early riser, who could always be counted on to break up a fight or liven up a dead conversation. Sarah, who wanted to be a comm officer, and who had excellent marks, but had such a grating and nasal voice that Lee was pretty sure they were going to stick her in code breaking instead. David, who seemed to like parts more than people, and, instead of emotional intelligence had been gifted with an innate understanding of how engines worked. There were hundreds more, and even if he didn't know exactly what made them tick, he could give a rundown on most of them.

The only one he hadn't gotten a handle on yet was Kara Thrace, but it didn't matter, because she was clearly going to be kicked out before the end of the year anyway.

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At the beginning of the next semester, his history professor suggested that he tutor some of the students who had almost failed last term. It would be good practice, he'd said, for the type of teaching that often went with a historian's job. It seemed like the right thing to do, and so Lee agreed.

It turned out tutoring was rather harder than he'd anticipated. Nobody really cared about the course, they all wanted to be deckhands and viper jocks, but most of them were willing to try, at least. It wasn't their fault that they were a bit on the slow side, but knowing that didn't make it any less frustrating for Lee, who was beginning to despair of the fact that future members of the colonial army kept confusing the Sagittarian rebellion with the Sage Wars, and had an alarming tendency to spell 'cylon' with a 'k'.

The tutoring sessions were open to anyone who wanted to take them, and so most afternoons, Lee found himself with two or three confused cadets. He had almost settled into a routine—what don't you understand? How about we try it like this?—when Kara Thrace strode into the room and plopped herself in front of him.

He was intrigued,-- extra tutoring didn't seem to be Thrace's style--but he'd decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"What don't you understand?" he asked her.

"I don't understand why this bloody awful course is required at all, or why someone who has the chops to do something else would choose to spend his days with his nose stuck in a history book." That little speech was delivered with a smirk, but Kara's eyes were sharp behind the smile. She was seizing him up, he realized, much like he'd done to her in the mess hall all those months ago. The only difference was, she didn't seem content to be a passive observer. She was more the type who poked people until they were riled enough to show their true colors.

She was going to have to poke harder than that if she wanted to rile Lee.

"There's something to be said for books," Lee informed her. "They never come barging in where they're not wanted, insulting people who are willing to help."

Her grin turned lecherous, "Bit lacking in… other areas though, books."

"Why are you here?" Lee asked her.

"I was told to get my grades in shape or get out. Besides, Karl bet me that I couldn't last ten tutoring sessions."

"What do you get if you win?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

And, as he had rather feared it would, that exchange set the tone for the rest of their sessions together.

Kara wasn't like his other students, though. She was sharp, and capable of making connections just as quickly as he himself was. The problem was that she saw no use for history, and so she just didn't care. She'd be distracted by the smallest things, and glomp onto the most insignificant details. She was forever asking him inane questions, like what General Hickering's favorite food was, or whether he though President Wagner was a legs man or a breast man. Even worse, she had a tendency to make up false information about historical characters, have them play in their own little anachronistic soap operas, and invent back stories where none existed, until he had to stop himself in class from thinking of Vice Chairman Spar as the man who was involved in an unfortunate incident with a muffin tin and his neighbor's pet goat.

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At first, Lee found Kara exasperating, but refused to be annoyed, because that would mean that she would win. Then, when she decided he was too easy a target for her constant ribbing, he began to secretly enjoy their sessions. Maybe she'd been spot on when she'd said that he had been spending too much time with books, because he'd started looking forward to her insane historical fictions and her loud, simple laughter.

She must have enjoyed his company too though, at least a little, because the night after their ten session were over, she'd shown up with a bottle of incredibly expensive alcohol, and told him that she thought it was only right that she share her hard-won bet winnings.

He'd drank more than he meant to, and despite the fact that she seemed like the type who might, she didn't come on to him. Which was good, because Lee didn't like loose women.

He was drunk enough to say it too, and Kara had laughed so hard she'd fallen off his bunk.

He informed her that he didn't like women who laughed at him any more than those who tried to sleep with him, but for some reason, that didn't deter her. In fact, if he wasn't mistaken, she may have laughed harder.

He was beginning to figure out that it took a hell of a lot to deter Kara Thrace.

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A/N: The title is shamelessly stolen from Shel Silverstein, for no reason at all other than that I like the poem, and there's a vague connection between stars and pilots. Poem below:

Somebody has to go polish the stars  
they're looking a little bit dull.  
Somebody has to go polish the stars,  
for the eagles and starlings and gulls academy  
have all been complaining  
they're tarnished and worn,  
they say they want new ones  
we cannot afford.  
So please, get your rags  
and your polishing jars.  
Somebody has to go polish the stars.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, he woke up late, his head felt full of cotton, and his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He had just decided to spend the day in bed when Kara pushed her way into his dorm, looking as if she'd slept a full eight hours, and carrying several cups of coffee.

"You're going to miss history class if you don't get your ass out of bed" she told him.

He grumbled something unintelligible in return, and she'd threatened to spill the coffee on him if he didn't get moving. He was learning that with Kara, it was always possible that she actually meant it, so he got up.

They'd only been ten minutes late, but the professor had obviously been scandalized by the fact that his favorite student was cavorting with the class clown. He'd actually gotten a lecture later, about how many nice young woman were out there, complete with historical examples of men who'd been led astray.

He decided that Kara had affected him more than he'd thought, because throughout his professor's entire speech, he'd been trying to hold back laughter. He succeeded though, so that was okay. The day when he couldn't hold himself back was the day when he would have to be careful of Kara Thrace and her influence.

He didn't think that was likely to happen anytime soon. He wasn't even sure she was going to stick around, now that her bet with Karl was over.

To his pleasure, she did. She wasn't a faithful attendee at his tutoring sessions anymore, but she found other ways to torment him all the same. They usually involved bribery of some sort. But since it was really poorly done bribery, he didn't feel all that bad about accepting.

" I'll come to tutoring tomorrow if you play on my pyramid team," she'd told him a week after the terrible history lecture.

He'd tried to explain that bribes only worked if you offered to give the other person something that they actually wanted, and that her coming to tutoring did not constitute her doing a favor for him, it was actually the other way around.

It wasn't until after his adrenaline was pumping and he was hurling the ball to her across the pyramid court that it occurred to him that perhaps her bribes were well-constructed after all. This was something he'd wanted, even if he hadn't realized it. The sweat and the heat and, better yet, the chance to weave through a game with her like this, in perfect unison.

She played pyramid like she did everything else, fast and hard and barely controlled, movements so instinctual that she seemed almost feral. It was beautiful to watch.

Not that Lee had made a habit of watching. On the contrary, he was trying quite hard not to watch. It went against some fundamental part of him though. Lee liked to think that it was the historian in him, that part that just couldn't help cataloging people, but he'd never been very good at fooling himself. She was drawing him in, without even being aware of what she was doing. Which meant that clearly, as the one in the know, it was his responsibility to put a stop to it. He tried. He really did. But it never quite worked, and by midterms he'd decided that the best way to stop thinking about her was to be too busy moving with her. Cadets started talking about them in the same breath, and his history professor looked like he had bit into a lemon whenever he saw them together, and Lee was almost ready to believe that perhaps sitting back and watching wasn't the best way to go about life after all.

And then his father came to the Academy on shore leave.

A/N: I know it's short. I'll post another chapter later today.


	3. Chapter 3

_And then his father came to the Academy on shore leave. _

Lee hadn't expected him, hadn't had time to steel himself, and was more than a little upset to hear that he was expected to play host to Commander Adama, pilot extraordinaire, for the next day or so.

After an off game of pyramid—they'd still won of course, but they hadn't _dominated_—Kara had cornered him in the locker room and demanded to know what was wrong. Lee wasn't used to that sort of thing. He worked hard not to let his emotions get in the way of his work, partly because he hated dealing with pity and questions. He didn't want other people scrutinizing his life, thank you very much. But this wasn't work, it was play, and this wasn't 'other people' it was Kara, who was getting too close to him for comfort, and he should have known that normal rules didn't apply.

"You're off," she told him. "What's gotten you so shaken up that you can't even catch a pyramid ball?"

"Flattery will get you everywhere," he told her, and he thought that she was actually taken aback by the flat tone of his voice and the look on his eyes. It was hard to tell though; for some reason, Kara never flinched. She'd done a slow blink, though, which Lee has decided is the basic equivalent. It means that she's confused, or upset, and needs to regroup.

He hadn't given her the chance. She was basically demanding to know what was wrong, and he'd never responded well to demands. And just because he was drawn to her didn't mean that she had to know every little detail of his private life. In fact, it was a pretty good reason to keep her at arms' length. Besides, he was almost a grown man. He could handle this. He would be fine.

-------------------------

And he was, for the most part. The way all the other cadets fawned over his father was both disgusting and disturbing, but his dad himself seemed to be in a remarkably good mood. He obviously approved of Lee going to the academy, and he had fond memories of the place, and of his various exploits while attending it. For all his interest in studying people, Lee had never really thought of his dad as a man with a history. To discover that he had once been a boy was… a bit of a relief actually. Also, the Bill Adama of yesteryear, the brash cadet with a penchant for hell-raising, kind of reminded Lee of Kara. It made his father strangely more tolerable.

That was the only reason he agreed to go to the flight sims at all. He wanted to see his dad and Kara side by side, and he knew that if they went to the sims on a weekend, she'd be there. 'Reliable' was never a word that anyone else would ever assign to Kara Thrace—Lee knew, because he'd used it to describe her once to Karl, and gotten a concerned lecture about love and blindness in response that he was still trying to pretend had never happened—but there were some things that she could be counted on for, and weekend sim time was one of them.

----------------------

Her face lit up when she saw him walk in, a slow burning smile that said she'd been waiting for this for ages. Even better, she hadn't even seemed to notice his father.

"Lee, Lee, Lee… I knew we'd get you in here one day. It was inevitable. You are no match for my strategic genius. It's useless to even try."

"You've never even mentioned me coming to the sims before."

She dismissed that easily, "All part of the strategic genius, I assure you." She slung an arm around his shoulders and started steering him, rather forcefully, in the direction of the flight suits, because apparently strategic genius, Kara-style, involved manhandling people until they gave up. Lee was not surprised.

He was surprised when she stopped short, and it took him a second or two to remember that his father was with him. He was staring at the two of them, looking mildly confused and smug all at once, and the first words that came into Lee's head were 'I'm not sleeping with her.' Thankfully, he managed not to say them out loud.

Instead, he said, "Kara, this is my father, William Adama. Dad this is my… this is Kara Thrace."

All in all not the best introduction he'd ever done, since Kara was looking at him as if he were a crazy person, and if his dad had had any doubt before, he was probably convinced now that he was carrying on some sort of not-so-secret affair.

He managed not to dwell on it though, because what was coming up was going to be far more unpleasant. Just because he hated flying didn't mean that he wanted his father to watch Kara wipe the floor with him.

-----------------------

Thankfully, she seemed to realize that, and although going easy on him never would have entered her mind, she did inform the small crowd of gathering cadets that this flight would be off-screen. And she stuck with her decision even after the crowd booed at her.

Normally, the flight patterns of the simulated planes were shown on a projection screen next to the sims so that spectators could study the battles. During classtime, the screens were used as a teaching tool. On weekends, they were a betting ground. This flight would have shaken up the odds a bit. Kara was by far the best cadet around, but Lee was a dark horse, and the son of one of the Academy's legends.

It was a good thing that the sims were closed off from the outside world. It probably would have pained the other cadets to see said son of legend trying to figure out how to fasten on his helmet correctly. And when he'd finally managed that, he'd had to ask Kara about taking off.

"Hey Kara, what button do you push to get in the air?"

"What?!?"

"There's too many damn buttons in here. Which one gets me off the ground?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Kara…"

"You're not kidding. Lee, have you ever been in a sim before?"

"Not since I was ten."

"What the hell, Lee. And here I thought this might be a bit of a challenge."

He'd disappointed her; it showed in her voice, and he could feel his already tenuous mood souring. His parents were officially divorced when he was ten, and he had sworn off the sims since then. He'd missed it, at the beginning, but flying reminded him of his father, and the bitter taste in the back of his mouth when he thought about him was worse than not flying at all.

"Frak this. I'm ending the sim, Kara. Which button do I push to do that?"

"Oh no you're not. Push the blue button on the right. That starts up the thrusters. Feel that? Okay, now, the green button on your left signals that you're ready to go out the chute. After you press it, you'll be catapulted out of the battleship. Keep your hands steady on the stick, and be prepared for a few g's. The acceleration can be a bitch if you're not used to it, and we wouldn't want you blacking out before I even get a change to slaughter you."

His vision did sparkle a bit at the acceleration, but she refrained from slaughtering him after he got out into space and oriented himself a bit. It was difficult, not having a direction he could safely think of as down, and Kara literally flying circles around him didn't help matters.

But once he got over the lack of direction, flying was… not bad at all. It was liberating in a way. He gave the bird more juice, heading towards an asteroid field, and heard Kara give a war whoop as she set about blasting the larger rocks into smithereens.

She was like a little boy. Like Zak, really. He didn't even have to see her to know that she was grinning, a slightly manic gleam in her eyes, as she battled against imaginary opponents. Lee had never been all that good at being a little boy—he had let Zak do enough of that for both of them—but he was beginning to realize that that didn't mean that he couldn't make up for lost time now.

He joined in as soon as he figured out how to fire his guns, and then tried to sneak attack Kara when she wasn't looking. It didn't work, of course, but it was kind of fun to try. She shot both his thrusters out from under him, and he'd had only a tenuous grasp on steering even when his bird was functioning perfectly.

She was sitting back, the bastard, waiting for him to crash into an asteroid. It was going to happen pretty soon, and Lee decided that he'd had enough of playing games. Even in a sim, the thought of crashing was incredibly, paralyzingly frightening. Luckily, the one button he did recognize was the big shiny eject button. He punched it in desperation, and the simulation ended in a blaze of light.

When they got out, he was shaking, heart beating double-time, and Kara was flushed and grinning. She refused to tell the waiting cadets what had happened, which Lee was grateful for on many levels, not the least of which was because it kept their attention focused on her, and away from the fact that his hands were still trembling.

In the end, the consensus seemed to be that she had beat him, but that he must be pretty good, since he lasted so long. The only one not weighing in on the conversation was his father, who was standing off to the side looking inscrutable. Never a good sign.

His eyes lit up when Kara challenged him to a duel though, and Lee started to think that maybe coming to the sims wasn't such a bad idea after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Their flight was onscreen, and it reminded Lee of pyramid, one-on-one. He could almost picture the expression on Kara's face as she ducked and weaved. Lip caught between small, even teeth, brows slightly furrowed. Concentration in its fullest, because when Kara turned her complete attention to something, the rest of the world didn't even exist for her. Of course, nothing got her complete attention often, but when it did, the effect was rather phenomenal.

He'd tried to get her to focus on history that way, but the closest he'd ever gotten was her full focus turned on him instead of the textbook. It'd been more than a little frightening, like all of him was being weighed in some sort of balance, like she could actually see what made him tick. He'd been craving it ever since the first time it happened.

He knew it was wrong to want that. Wanting things was alright, but wanting _people_, wanting attention and appreciation, left you open to all kinds of hurt. He'd learned that young, from the other player on the sim screen.

And perhaps that's why he'd never been hit by jealousy quite as strongly as he was while watching their contest, a sharp spike of it, running through him without his permission. He hadn't been sure whether he was jealous of his father, getting to share something with Kara that he couldn't, or whether he was jealous of her getting to share something with his father that he couldn't.

And he had a long time to think about it, as their flight kept going for a good half hour. The particular sim they'd chosen was an aerial obstacle course of sorts, not popular with the first-year cadets because it usually ended with one player flying into something rather than a firefight. Both Kara and his father were too good for that though, and they'd used the obstacles as both cover and weapon, trying to lure each other into tough spots while keeping their own positions secure. The flight ended in a draw, Kara losing on points because she'd run out of fuel first.

She complained good-naturedly that it wasn't fair, because you could still fly on bingo fuel, dang it, and she was pretty sure she could have gotten the Commander if she'd just been allowed a few more seconds.

More important though, she looked at his father with _that_ look, the one that meant complete focus. And his dad didn't even know enough to appreciate how unusual that was. He just grinned back at her, a casual smile on his face. At least, until he set eyes on Lee. That knocked the grin off pretty quickly, and Lee wasn't sure whether to be hurt or vindictively glad.

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He and his father had a frank exchange of views over dinner, of the kind which served to make Lee eternally grateful that there was no chance that he would ever be serving under this man.

Turns out that his parents still aren't that great at the whole communication thing, and though his mom told his dad that their eldest had made it into the fleet academy, she'd neglected to tell him about the history concentration. Commander Adama had not been best pleased to hear that his son was planning on life as an academic.

"Lee," he'd said, "you're wasting your talents by sitting here all day with your nose stuck in books."

Lee's first thought was of Kara, the first day he'd spoken to her, and her comment about books being lacking. His second thought was that his dad had never before thought he had any talents to waste. Those two ideas festered together the rest of the evening, as he went through the motions of bidding his father farewell. He ended the night like he always ends nights with his father, feeling both like a lost little boy and pissed as hell.

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He usually refuses when Kara comes to his door and tries to drag him along on her semi-regular drinking binges, but when she knocked on his door that night, he was already dressed and ready to go.

He wasn't surprised to see her. Karl and his speech on unreliability aside, he knew Kara now, at least well enough to know what she'd do most of the time, even if he still hasn't quite figured out what makes her tick.

For her part, she didn't seem surprised at his willingness to go with her. There wasn't even a slow blink to indicate confusion as she took his wrist in a vice-grip and pulled him along to Karl's banged-up car. The grip was actually a little comforting, but the fact that she might be reading him just as well or better than he was reading her was not. He was supposed to figure her out, not the other way around. That was how it worked. That was the whole point. She could be the godsdamned hero, and he would watch. Being watched back in return was not part of the bargain.

He realized he wasn't making much sense: after all, he'd wanted her complete focus only that afternoon. That was before she'd talked to his father though. He wasn't sure he wanted any part of anyone who thought William Adama was worth their attention.

He was acting like a child and he knew it. It should have made him think twice about imbibing anything likely to lower his inhibitions. Instead, he'd proceeded to get smashingly drunk. It was all Kara's fault, he was pretty sure. His history professor was completely right about her being a bad influence.

Especially since he'd had beer goggles before, but never quite like this. He looked at Kara through a haze of alcohol, and all he could see was the child his father had always wanted.

He wasn't usually a nasty drunk—he wasn't usually any kind of drunk—but that night he picked a fight with her. It was a stupid thing to do. He should have gone home, or, barring that, at least picked a fight with someone else. Someone a little less able to hurt him.

But she was there, and his dad liked her, and she was getting too _close_ damn it, and the only consolation that his drunken mind could come up with was that somewhere in the past year, he had picked up on enough things that he knew how to hit her where it hurt. And since his father had just come to visit, family was a natural enough topic.

"Kara, what does your dad do?" He was _good_. Even this drunk, he'd managed to make his tone of voice natural enough that she answered casually, even though she normally never talked about family. Maybe the alcohol had loosened her tongue. Or maybe she thought that he needed to talk about fathers, after the day he'd had. She couldn't have been more wrong.

"He's a musician," she said. Or maybe that had been "He was." Lee was a little too tipsy, and Kara lisping just enough, that it could have been either.

"Sounds like a nancy profession to me. No wonder he didn't have the balls to stick around."

And there, he had her full attention again. Just like he'd wanted. Just like his father had had. She was pale and furious, and he was taking a breath, getting ready to throw everything he'd ever suspected about her family back in her face, to make her pay for knowing him so well, for liking his father, for…

The next thing he knew he was on the ground, and he could feel his eye swelling shut. He could have gotten up and hit her back, but he was in more than a bit of shock. Besides, he'd deserved that.

"What the frak would you know about unhappy childhoods, little Adama?" she asked.

She looked fierce and ugly, face twisted and hands balled into fists, and he had had enough. He told her so, screamed at her, and pretty soon everything he knew about unhappy childhoods was pouring out of him: the divorce, Zak, how nothing he did was ever good enough, how terrified he was that somehow his father would pull strings and take history away from him…

His eyes had blurred somewhere in the middle of the tirade, and one of them was swelling shut, and he felt sick. And now his plan of not letting her know too much, not letting her get too close, was pretty much shot to hell.

He was too lost in misery to notice when Kara sat down next to him, but he noticed when she put her hand on his shoulder, a steady presence that just stayed there for a few minutes, until he could gather himself enough to get off the floor and make his way back to the dorms.

She never apologized, or told him that she understood, but she did sneak into the infirmary that night to get him an ice pack, and Lee decided that it was almost the same thing.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, he woke up with a shiner, and a feeling of great foreboding that reminded him of nothing so much as when, in third grade, he'd pulled Helen Martin's pigtails (because they were shiny, and the perfect length, and Helen had been the cutest girl in their year). She'd refused to sit at the same lunch table as him for months, and he'd been about as crushed as an eight year old could be.

And this was going to be much worse, already was much worse, because with Helen he had an excuse. He was a boy, and he hadn't meant to hurt her, and she'd walked away with little more than a sore head and an unshakable belief that Lee was a moron. He wasn't a boy anymore, though, and he'd meant to hurt Kara. He wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to speak to him again.

When he came into the mess for breakfast, Kara was chatting with Karl. If she saw him, she gave no sign of it. Karl beckoned him over, though, with a concerned look that told Lee that yes, his eye looked just as bad to everyone else as it looked to him. Kara greeted him with a polite, non-committal "Hi Lee" and Karl started interrogating him about his eye.

"What happened to you?"

"I said something I shouldn't have. Something that I didn't mean, and had no right to say. I'm really, really sorry."

Karl was looking at him doubtfully. Kara wasn't looking at him at all.

"Incredibly sorry," Lee continued. "I'd take it back if I could. I'll try and make it right, if they give me a chance..."

Kara got up then, and gave a bright smile that didn't reach her eyes, and said something about having to go, and not wanting to be late to class. Kara, Lee reflected gloomily, was gleefully late to morning class at three times a week. It was a matter of principle for her. He knew, because she always got up early to go for a morning run, no matter what or who she'd done the previous day, so the tardiness wasn't due to laziness or need for sleep. He liked Kara best in the morning, actually. She was softer, somehow, before she'd woken up completely. And the sweat from her morning run looked good on her…

"Are you sure you're okay?" Karl was asking, and Lee realized that the other cadet must have been talking for awhile now. "No delusions or anything? Maybe whoever it was hit you harder than you thought."

Yeah, Lee thought, eyes on the door that Kara had left through. Yeah, maybe they did.

He had no right to be angry, or bereft, or missing his friend after only one night. He knew that. Somehow, though, it didn't help at all.

The next few weeks Kara was flawlessly polite towards him. They still played pyramid together, and sat next to each other in history class, but she refused to joke with him, push him, or spend any time with him outside of those two activities.

People had begun to notice, although some of them widely misinterpreted the situation. One of the soon-to-be viper jockeys had asked him for his secret, how he'd managed to harness the great Kara Thrace. Lee highly suspected that he'd asked because he was trying to get into Kara's pants, and he spent the rest of that day in a foul mood, praying to the gods that his classmate would be stuck piloting raptors for the rest of his life. On _Galactica_. Non-computer-assisted landings on an outmoded piece of junk for the rest of his sorry career.

He'd wanted to tell Kara that the guy was a creep, that she should stay away from him, but somehow it was hard to work that into a conversation about the importance of agricultural in the First Colonial War, and they never really talked anymore when they played Pyramid.

In some ways, Lee found that incredibly frustrating. After all, half the fun of playing with Kara was her mouth.

_No, wait,_ he thought desperately. That hadn't come out right. Half the fun of playing with Kara was her _words_, the way she wielded them like they were another weapon in the game, threw them out with the same violence and recklessness that she used on the pyramid ball.

In other ways though, Lee was grateful for the silence. It was better by far than icy politeness, and neither of them could help the fact that when they played together, something just _clicked_. She might be angry at him, or hurt, or, the most likely and worst choice of all, simply have decided that he wasn't worth the effort anymore, but she couldn't keep up with the ice queen routine when they were on the court together. They could anticipate each other's moves, read each other's intent, and there was nothing either of them could do about their eyes locking and their bodies brushing. Lee wanted it too much and Kara wanted to win too much for them to be anything less than completely in tune.

The rest of the time though, Lee had to settle for watching Kara from afar, like he had before tutoring and pyramid and the whole glorious mess that what his friendship with Kara Thrace.


	6. Chapter 6

_The rest of the time though, Lee had to settle for watching Kara from afar, like he had before tutoring and pyramid and the whole glorious mess that what his friendship with Kara Thrace._

What he saw was… different from before. For all his interest in history, there had always been a part of Lee that had rebelled against the idea that truth was dependent upon perspective. Something either happened or it did not. Theories were either right or they were wrong. People either knew something or they didn't, knew someone or they didn't.

But he was beginning to see that, in light of new information, what had looked like a complete truth could turn out to be just a single facet. He had thought that Kara was brilliant, and she was. That she was brash and ruthless and constantly teetering on the edge of something dark, held back only by an iron will and her own good humor. And that was true too.

What he hadn't known was that she was broken. She hid it quite well, but he could see it clearly now, in the way she held her shoulders when she had thought of something she wanted to say to him and then realized a moment later that she couldn't, by the way that she kept everyone, even Karl, even him, even before, at a safe distance.

She was obviously badly scarred from something. Something that probably should have destroyed her, but didn't, because Kara Thrace was one of the toughest people he knew. Not because of her bravado or her smoking or her drinking, but because of a quieter, more feminine strength, an ability to bear up under pain.

The fact that he'd given her more of that pain made him a little sick to his stomach, but mostly it fostered a burning desire to make things right, damn it, and he couldn't do that if she wasn't going to let him in. She hadn't looked at him, _really_ looked at him, since the bar incident.

So he challenged her to an off-screen sim battle, and he did it in the mess hall, within earshot of at least 50 other wannabe viper pilots, so that she couldn't turn him down.

She'd shown up that Saturday, made a few friendly comments to the other cadets in the practice room, and proceeded to slaughter him in 30 seconds flat, which was probably some kind of a sim record. "I wish I could say that that was a good fight, but I'd be lying," she said.

She'd been trying for unaffected, but there was an edge of desperation to her voice that made Lee think that she wasn't talking about the sims at all.

He decided that was progress, so when she made a beeline for the door of the practice room, he followed her out into the corridor, ignoring the shocked looks of the cadets behind him. "Wait!," he called, and watched her back stiffen. For a sick moment, he thought she was going to ignore him again, shut him down like she'd been doing for weeks. Bitter disappointment washed over him; he'd been sure that the sims would get her blood boiling enough to actually spark a confrontation.

And then she twitched and whirled on him, eyes burning into his.

"What do you want, Lee?!"

"I…ummm..." and wasn't this brilliant. Now that he'd finally gotten her to talk, he had no reply for her. None that he was willing to say out loud, at any rate.

She turned away in disgust and starting walking again, and he couldn't let her leave. He lunged for her wrist, and those eyes were back on him again, dark and furious.

"Leave me alone."

"No."

There was a flash of something in those eyes, and then she punched him in the gut with her free hand, and he doubled over, but refused to let go. When she followed up with a kick to his kneecap he fell into the wall, and she was wrenched along after him, still caught in his grip. Then she tried to twist his arm to make him let go, and he panicked. Slammed his free fist into her side and shoved her up against the wall. Her face was suddenly mere inches away from his, and she was breathing hard, and his mind was a debilitating jumble of "Oh shit" and "Kara" and "I just hit a girl."

Sensing easy prey, she shoved him off her, and proceeded to drive her elbow into his adam's apple, three times, just as precise and scientific as she had been in the sims. He was afraid that was going to be the end of it, but when he dropped to the ground, gasping for air, she followed him down and straddled his back, twisting his arm violently behind him. She was pretty close to dislocating his shoulder, and even worse, he couldn't _see_ her. There was no way this was going to end well…

"Thrace," came a tired-sounding voice, "What have I told you about the difference between hitting people and hitting _on_ people? Let the poor Adama boy up, and report to hack. Now." Lee strained to look over his shoulder and saw one of the flight instructors standing there, looking put-upon.

Kara rolled her eyes. "The Adama boy started it," she mumbled, and he waited for it to turn into something more. Something to get him back for his words a week ago, but she merely sighed and climbed off him. The knee to his kidney was probably intentional, but then again, he couldn't really blame her. He did take a moment to wish that she wasn't quite so strong though.

And then he rolled over and announced, "I'm going too." His voice came out kind of hoarse; he was pretty sure she'd damaged something important when she'd went for his throat, but he didn't really care at the moment.

She was looking at him as if he were crazy, but that was okay too, because at least she was looking.

"Can you even stand?" It was asked with derision, but that actually made it better. It meant that she wasn't harboring any guilt. Perhaps they were in agreement then, and that had been payback for bringing up her father, and they were even now. He certainly hoped so. He missed her, damn it, and he wasn't sure he was up for another fight.

He stuck his hand out, and then cheered inwardly when she grabbed it, hauling him to his feet. She was really looking at him now, studying him as if he were some sort of lab specimen, and it occurred to him that perhaps she had expected him to accept her politeness, as if he wouldn't have a problem settling for a distant and quiet version of her. He thought of the viper jock who'd asked him for his secret and wondered how many times people had told Kara that she should be less, well, less _Kara_ and more like the polite mockery she'd been giving him for the better part of a month.

The flight instructor was looking at them both incredulously, but had apparently decided that neither Lee's virtue nor person needed further protection.

He kept bumping shoulders with her on their way to hack, which probably meant that he was walking too close, but she didn't seem to mind, so he kept it up.


	7. Chapter 7

_He kept bumping shoulders with her on their way to hack, which probably meant that he was walking too close, but she didn't seem to mind, so he kept it up._

------------------------------

When they got to the cell area, the guards handed Lee some paperwork to fill out, and a rather large part of him started to panic. He felt like a little kid who'd been caught fighting and given detention, and he didn't start it, it wasn't fair, now his parents were going to…

And then he remembered that he did start it, actually, and this was the least he deserved, and from what he had gathered during his father's visit, his dad would probably be pleased to hear that Lee had done something hack-worthy. Though he hadn't, really. He'd basically invited himself along for the ride, because there was no way he was going to let Kara out of his sight. Not until he knew that they were okay again.

His plan was foiled though, because Kara apparently didn't need to fill out paperwork. In fact, she didn't seem to need any guidance at all. She walked into the holding area, and the guard on duty greeted her with a jovial, "Hey Kara, little early for you isn't it?" She returned, "Hey Horace, sorry you got stuck on the weekend shift," and Lee began to have terrible suspicions about what Kara got up to after hours, when he and all other sane history majors were either studying or safely asleep.

He knew that she got thrown in hack every once in awhile. And he'd heard about her wild triad games, and personally experienced her famed ability to drink everyone else under the table. He just hadn't thought that she would be on a first-name basis with the hack guards.

He decided that that was okay though, because her wild nights of debauchery and mayhem meant that she was able to persuade the guard to let them share a cell. Then he had a terrible moment where guards letting two people share conjured up the phrase 'conjugal visit.' Half of him was trying very hard not to run away with that thought, and the other half was busy deciding that no matter what perks it got them, he still very much disapproved of Kara's nocturnal adventures.

His mind was whirling, had been since the moment he hit her, and he must have mumbled that bit about conjugal visits out loud, because when he looked up Kara was trying to hold back laughter.

"Lee," she informed him, sniggering a bit, "there's something very, very wrong with you."

"You bring it out in me!" he accused, and he was right, she did. She brought a lot out in him, this infuriating, impulsive woman, sitting next to him in a dingy cell, hair shining like a beacon as she tipped her head, stopped holding back, and laughed at him outright.

She was right too, he thought ruefully, there _was_ something wrong with him. He was sitting in hack, being laughed at, and something was loosening inside him, something that had been wound too tight ever since the night his father left. He felt better than he had in a long time.

"_You'll never understand her_," said a hysterical little voice in his head, "_she's dangerous and unpredictable, you're way too wrapped up in her, she's probably sleeping with Horace the hack guard!_" But most of him was too busy reveling in her laughter to listen—something about it was infectious. His chuckle was rusty at first, and a little on the hysterical side as well, but once he started it was hard to stop.

----------------------------------

By the time he managed to get himself back under control, Kara had sprawled next to him, half collapsed against the wall. She was still catching her breath, her elbow was digging into his ribs, and she was watching him as if she were trying to decide something. Then she nodded once, and all the hesitance went out of her gaze, and he wondered if he would ever be able to truly tell what was going on in that head of hers.

"You hit me," she informed him. Her tone was even, as if she were talking about the weather or discussing the latest pyramid standings, but it dried up the last of his laughter anyway.

"I'm sorry," he said miserably, both because he was, and because he'd just decided that, no, he probably never would be totally able to read her. The woman just didn't operate the way most people did.

"'S Alright." She said, "Didn't hurt. You hit like a girl. You really should work on that."

"Okay…," he ventured, because he couldn't think of what else to say, and had no idea where this conversation was headed. Somehow it always seemed to be uncharted territory with Kara, and usually that was invigorating, but right now he just felt lost.

"Besides," she continued, "Being sorry doesn't help anything. What we need around here is less being sorry and more making things right. You hit me, and got me thrown into hack, so now that I'm here, you have to entertain me." Her little speech was accompanied by an uncertain smile, and he couldn't figure out whether she was offering reassurance or looking for it herself. He thought maybe it was a little bit of both.

More importantly, he wasn't sure how exactly she'd gotten from icily polite to the "let's forget it" phase so very quickly. And he needed to know. Or at the very least needed _her_ to know what _he_ was thinking. And if bringing up that night at the bar caused her to reject him and decide to go back to being distant, well then, he'd probably cry, but at least she and Horace the guard would be the only witnesses. It was better than not having this out now, and getting into another, similar situation later, and having her pull away again. He didn't think he could handle something like this twice.

"Look, Kara, I'll… ummm.. entertain you later, I promise, but I really do need to apologize first."

"It's okay! No apology necessary!" She was looking a little hunted, and Lee was a genius, having somehow engineered a situation where she physically had no escape, and had to sit and hear him out.

"It _is_ necessary. I need you to believe that I'm sorry. That I was way out of line, with what I said about your father. I… I used what I suspected about your past to hurt you, and it was cruel of me. And I'm not going to do it again."

"Of course you are!" She was looking at him as if he were an idiot, but there was something in her expression that reminded him of a little girl, angry and unsure, "That's what people do, Lee! They hurt each other. And then they say they're sorry, and that they won't do it again, but they always do!"

The urge to apologize suddenly got about ten times stronger, as Lee began to suspect that her childhood was much, much worse than he'd thought. He reigned it in though, because that wasn't what Kara needed right now. And she was probably right: he couldn't promise not to hurt her again. "I'm going to try not to be an ass. And when I fail and am anyway, I'm going to feel really, really bad."

"Are you going to lock me up and subject me to something like this every time that happens?" She was exasperated, but she also looked reassured, and that was more important.

"Yeah, probably."

"Promise me that you're going to try really hard no to do it, then."

"I promise."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

She leaned back, looking smug and shyly pleased all at once. "Now you have to entertain me. We're in here for at least another 12 hours."


	8. Chapter 8

_She leaned back, looking smug and shyly pleased all at once. "Now you have to entertain me. We're in here for at least another 12 hours."_

Lee kind of wanted to tell her that she made no sense, that that whole thing should have been harder, and that someone had no business looking like _that_ two minutes after they'd basically labeled all human interaction as essentially destructive. Mostly though, he just wanted her to keep smiling.

"If you think I've got juggling balls hidden somewhere in my flightsuit, you're sorely mistaken," he informed her. "I didn't come equipped to be a floor show."

"You'll just have to be creative then," she told him, "Maybe if you're nice, Horace will agree to get you some props." Her tone of voice that told him that he probably shouldn't have said 'juggling balls' if he didn't want to listen to innuendo for the next 12 hours. Perhaps on another day he could have taken it, but today his nerves were already shot enough as it was.

Although she'd actually had a good thought there, what with collusion with the guard and all. "Okay," he told her. "Use your hard-won connections with Horace, and see if you can't rustle us up some triad cards."

She grinned at him, a blinding smile that told him he'd said something right, then went to the front of their cell and called for Horace. Five minutes later, they had triad cards, and also enough evidence for Lee to suspect that Horace had a rather serious crush on Kara. Not that he could blame the man.

--------------------------

He'd heard that Kara had a good triad face. He had thought that meant that she would be stoic, but he should have realized that that wasn't the way she operated. Instead, her version of the triad face consisted of acting as if she had the best hand possible, no matter what the circumstances. He could see how she got into bar fights. If he hadn't been so stupidly relieved to see her smiling, he might have been tempted to wipe the smirk off her face too. Either by force, or possibly by kissing her. He decided then that he was never, ever going to play triad with Kara while drunk. There was no way it would end well.

It was going okay now though, especially since he kept beating her.

"You're cheating!" she finally exclaimed, though she seemed more admiring than angry.

"No, I'm winning," he informed her.

"How?" she demanded.

He looked at her playfully, "Maybe I'm just better than you are."

"You're a terrible triad player. You have the worst triad face ever, and you tap your left hand on your knee when you're nervous, and I can always tell if you have two of the same color by the way you arrange your cards."

"And yet I'm still beating you."

"Which brings me back to my original question, 'How?'"

"I'm counting cards," he admitted.

"That's cheating!"

"I'm not actually looking through the deck. I'm counting discards, and the cards in my hand, and calculating the odds of you having something better than me. It's not cheating, it's math."

"It still sounds suspicious to me. Show me how."

And he did.

Three hours later, he had created a monster. More often than not, she actually seemed to have to cards to back up her poker face, and he started to believe her when she told him that she was going to beat her.

"I owe you one, Lee," she told him. "What do you want me to buy you?"

"Huh?" He wasn't quite sure how the conversation kept on running away without him. Perhaps the whole day had taken more out of him than he'd thought.

"I'm going to go out and play triad tomorrow. And then I'm going to be rich. And it's going to be because of you, so what do you want me to buy you."

"A history book."

"I think you just might be the most boring person on record."

"I've kept you entertained for hours, haven't I? I can't be that bad."

"No," she said, studying him, "You really aren't. I think it might be almost in spite of yourself, but still. I kind of like having you around."

Even with the day's events having convinced him that his Kara-reading skills weren't up to par, Lee was still pretty sure that that meant she really had forgiven him. He reveled in that for a few minutes, sitting with her in companionable silence.

And then the lights dimmed for the evening shift, and his conjugal visit thought came back, and he realized with sudden clarity that there was only one cot in the cell.

Even in the dim light, his panic must have been obvious, because she winked at him and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Adama, your virtue is safe with me."

She went over to the front of the cell and called for Horace to get another cot. Lee settled back on the first cot, gave up the battle to keep his eyes off her ass and the curve of her waist, and thought forlornly, "what if I don't _want_ my virtue to be safe?"


	9. Chapter 9

_She went over to the front of the cell and called for Horace to get another cot. Lee settled back on the first cot, gave up the battle to keep his eyes off her ass and the curve of her waist, and thought forlornly, "what if I don't _want_ my virtue to be safe?" _

-----------------------------

He had what he wanted most though, and for the next month, he and Kara tried to make up for lost time by playing as much pyramid as was humanly possible. Lee thought that he might be addicted-- an adrenaline junkie who needed his fix to come Kara-style-- and he had to consciously pull himself back to his books when finals rolled around.

He pulled Kara back with him, of course, and cajoled, bribed, and entertained until she had at least a basic grasp of modern colonial history. She had pockets of knowledge, tucked away somewhere, things that actually mattered to her, and whenever they hit upon one, he was surprised at their depth, if a little despairing of their breadth. They'd been going through the names of the gods, modern religion was part of what they were being tested on, and Kara had declared that she knew this part.

"Is this the same way that you knew about Kristoph Ledger? Because if your grasp on religion came from watching cartoons, Kara, I don't think…"

She'd cut him off with, "Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Bacchus…" down the list until she'd named the entire pantheon. Not many people could do that, and those that could usually recited them by rote, in a rushed monotone that said that their parents had forced it on them in grade school. Kara said the name of each one as if she knew them, as if invoking the names brought forth memories. Lee had almost felt jealous.

When she'd finished, she'd given him a look that warned him not to say anything, so he hadn't. He'd filed that piece of information away though, and promised himself that he'd pay special attention to that part of her. She didn't seem religious at all, but he'd learned not to assume with Kara.

When they got their final exams back, Lee was at the top of their year, and his history professor had personally congratulated him. His little speech included something about Lee showing excellent promise as a teacher, being able to get through to "even the thickest, most brutish of classmates." Kara had been standing by his side, they'd had to beat a hasty retreat after she'd said "I'll show you a brute" and actually bared her teeth at the professor. The poor little man had squeaked like a dog toy and retreated behind his desk. They hadn't quite made it to the door before Kara started laughing. Lee managed to get about 20 feet down the hallway before he joined her. Mostly because he was still in a little bit of shock. Worth it or no, normal people didn't actually _snarl_ like that.

"I'm sorry. I have failed you as your tutor," he told her. "I left out the most important lesson, because I thought it was self-evident: _you do not, under any circumstances, threaten your history teacher_."

"He squeaked!"

"You're missing the point."

"I didn't even know men could make a sound like that. He's clearly wasting his calling as a human piccolo."

"Kara, you can't just go around scaring people like that. You're going to give someone a heart attack!"

"Do you squeak like that?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Kara, I'm really _really_ sure."

"Are you now," she said, eyes glinting, and then she lunged.

He should have realized she was going to try something, but he'd thought she was incapacitated by laughter. He should have known better. Whatever doubts people may have had about Cadet Thrace, no one could deny that her reflexes were almost uncanny.

He had just been praised by a leading scholar in his field. He was supposed to be celebrating his scholastic achievements with grace and aplomb. And Kara was definitely ruining his image by tickling him until he was on the floor squealing like a girl. Clearly, in order to reestablish his dignity, not to mention his masculinity, the laws of nature dictated that he should use his weight advantage to try and turn the tables on her.

Problem was, though she was lighter than he was, she was fast, and he hadn't taken into account that she could tickle him just as well from underneath him as she could from on top. He needed to pin her hands, but that was easier said than done.

He had almost managed though, by the time his professor walked past. And then Kara had taken one look at the expression on his face and burst into uncontrollable laughter. Lee figured that meant he'd won.

He was top in his class. He had survived the first year of the academy. He was sure his professor would forgive him someday for liking Kara, and more importantly, he had a beautiful woman underneath him, smiling up at him with one of those looks that said her entire focus had narrowed down to just him.

He really wanted to kiss her, but he didn't want to ruin today by doing something stupid. In the end, he compromised, pulled her up and then into his arms. When he planted a soft kiss on her forehead, she looked at him quizzically, but she didn't seem to mind.

There was one week until assignments were going to be given out, and in an uncharacteristic display of optimism, Lee decided that it was going to be the best week ever. No classes, no obligations, just Kara.


	10. Chapter 10

And so Kara was with him when assignments were posted. They had made plans for a game of triad and then a rare night out together, since even history majors celebrated assignment day. As Kara had pointed out, it was tradition to get sloshed after receiving one's second-year placement, and if there was anything history majors respected, it was tradition.

Some of the other cadets were nervous about their assignments, but Lee and Kara were basically guaranteed their spots. He could have his pick of concentrations, and she had passed her classes by a respectable margin. Everyone knew that her name was going to be at the very top of the pilot roster.

It turned out that everyone was horribly, tragically wrong. When official assignments were posted, her name was second on the pilot list. His was first.

_Right_, Lee thought. _So this is why I don't do optimism_. In the back of his mind, he'd half-suspected something like this, but he'd repressed that fear pretty thoroughly. He hadn't wanted to believe that his father would actually do it. Hadn't wanted to believe that the system would actually let him get away with it.

Kara tried to make a grab for him but he pushed her off with shaking hands and said, "Just give me awhile" and she backed off.

--------------------------

He stalked over to his professor's office and proceeded to give him a chewing out that would have made Kara proud. Once he'd calmed down enough to actually allow the professor to talk, he found that his dad had pulled strings not at the academy itself, but at the officer training school, arguing that there was a war coming, that they had to be ready, that they needed the best and the brightest in the field.

The worst part of it was that Lee was pretty sure no one in officer training school actually believed his father. But if an old war hero wanted his son to be a pilot, who were they to stand in the way?

A wire call to his dad was met with a comm officer's voice telling him politely that his father was on his sleep shift and had asked not to be disturbed. Clearly he had anticipated Lee's reaction, and just as clearly he had told the officer, because otherwise a planetside call from a family member would have been patched through to quarters immediately. Lee told the comm officer that, and kept calling, every five minutes, until she finally broke down and let him speak with his father.

It was an unpleasant conversation, though it had its highlights. Lee had not raised his voice the entire time, though he'd been screaming inside, and it was the first time he'd managed that in an argument with his father. He also thought he'd managed to convey precisely what he thought of his old man's interference, and exactly what it meant for their relationship. There wasn't much ambiguity in, "I don't want to be a pilot. I don't want to be anything like you. I don't want anything to do with you. I don't plan on ever speaking to you again."

Maybe being a historian was a stupid idea after all, Lee reflected, as he slammed down the wireless and went back to his room. After all, who wanted to study people? They were entirely useless creatures.

------------------------------

He went back to his quarters and proceeded to destroy everything he could. Eventually, he had nothing left but his books. The likelihood that he would ever need them again was slim, but he couldn't quite bring himself to destroy them, so he sat down on his bed and started to think about putting his fist through the wall instead.

When someone started knocking on his door, he decided to ignore it, because he wasn't up to dealing with anyone at the moment, thank you very much. But then the knock was followed by a very familiar voice. Damn it he thought, they'd agreed to go out to celebrate. There was no way that was happening now.

"Lee, I know you're in there. Stop being a wimp, and open the door."

"I'm not going out, Kara."

"I know. Just let me in."

He did, but only because the destruction of half his room, combined with impotent rage, had wiped him out, and he didn't have the energy to fight her.

Kara shouldered her way past him as if she were afraid that he might change his mind and close the door on her after all.

When her eyes settled on Lee, she actually looked a little surprised. "You look like crap, pretty boy."

Perhaps she knew what she was doing, making sure she wasn't too close to the door. He was kind of tempted to throw her right back out again.

It must have showed on his face, because her expression softened and she grabbed his hand and led him over to his bed. She tugged him down to sit beside her, then twined their fingers together in a solid grip.

She was silent for several moments, a minor miracle for Kara, as she turned his hand over in her own. It wasn't a tender gesture, or at least, that wasn't all it was. She looked more curious than anything else, running her smaller hands over his larger one as if mapping out its contours would reveal some sort of secret. He was suddenly glad that he hadn't put his fist through the wall.

"I'm not very good at this comfort thing, I know," she said eventually, still staring at their linked hands, "but I'm going to try, okay?."

He said nothing. He had seen Kara's attempts at comfort before, and quite frankly, they didn't inspire much confidence. They'd usually ended with her getting frustrated, giving up, and then trying to beat the other party into submission. If she tried to beat him right now, he was going to explode. The only thing keeping him from pushing her out the door was the fact that he knew she could handle herself if he did.

She didn't seem inclined to push though.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Oh. Well. That's good then," she said, and she really did sound relieved. "I'm not so great at the whole feelings thing either."

"I've noticed," Lee said dryly, and Kara slapped him, but it hurt a lot less than it usually did, because her dominate hand was still linked with his.

He was going to do this, he thought, looking at their linked hands. He wasn't going to let his father tear him away from what he wanted. If he had to go through officer training to get enough people on his side, then he'd do it.

He wasn't a war hero, but he also wasn't a crazy crank either, and as soon as he figured out the rules, he could play this stupid assignments system just as well as his dad. Better.


	11. Chapter 11

_He wasn't a war hero, but he also wasn't a crazy crank either, and as soon as he figured out the rules, he could play this stupid assignments system just as well as his dad. Better. _

-----------------------------

He started outlining his plan to Kara, because he had to say something or he was going to start crying. Also, she had a head for strategy, she could help him in this. And she could, perhaps, pull him out when he got in over his head. Everyone said that she wasn't reliable, but as she sat there and listened to him, planned with him, Lee decided that he was going to trust her.

He had to. He'd never wanted to be a pilot, and he had no idea how to even start to live in a world of off-color jokes and viper jocks. But he needed to not only survive it but be _good_ at it. The plan depended upon getting people on his side. And Kara, well, Kara was at home in that world. Not many people took the time to get past her fast and loose façade, but most people liked her, and those that weren't were jealous of her. She knew how to work a crowd, and that was something that Lee had never been good at. She knew how to work a viper, and, gods, Lee had almost forgotten that part what with all the planning, but that was something he was going to need to learn too.

He told her everything he was thinking, because he didn't have the wherewithal to censor things right now, and because if she was going to help him, then she needed all the information he had. Thankfully, she didn't look too offended at being used for her viper jock whiles. Maybe that was because he'd actually used the phrase "viper jock wiles" which had made her snort inelegantly and inform him that even former history majors should know that the word "wiles" was reserved for women in corsets and men who thought codpieces were the height of fashion.

There was a rather awkward pause after that, both because of the word "codpiece" and because everything had happened so fast, and Lee couldn't think of his dreams as former yet. Kara had a way of stating facts as bluntly and tactlessly as possible. On another day, it might have made him angry, but he was too drained for anger right now. Worse, if he reached for it, he was pretty sure that it would well up in him again. And he didn't have anything left to destroy.

"Lee," Kara said, sounding a bit tentative. "Maybe it's time to get some sleep."

He felt panic welling up instead of anger, and had to viciously remind himself that he was going to have to be alone sometime. That he could use Kara as a way through pilot training, but he couldn't very well use her as a shield against facing reality. Especially since, as she'd proven scant minutes before, she herself was liable to shove reality in his face.

He was so busy berating himself that he almost didn't catch the fact that instead of heading for the door, Kara was heading for the bathroom. When she popped out again a few minutes later, face freshly washed and toothpaste foam around her mouth, he froze. Too many things had happened today, and he couldn't _think_ straight, and was that his toothbrush in her hand?

"Kara?"

"Your toothpaste tastes really good. I've never seen this brand before."

"Kara, what are you doing?"

"Gods Lee, I know you're picky, but it's just a toothbrush. I promise it'll wash right off."

Kara was probably used to using other people's toothbrushes. Kara probably spent the night with other people on a regular enough basis not to be fussed about things like that. Lee, however, did not, and he was still trying to process what was happening. He was staring at his toothbrush because it was the only familiar thing in a suddenly unrecognizable world.

"If you want me to leave, I'll leave," Kara said, trying for unaffected and not quite getting there. "And you know, your virtue is still safe with me. I'm just… I thought maybe this should be part of the whole comfort thing."

He continued to stare at the toothbrush until she disappeared with it back into the bathroom. When she came out again, her face was blank and she was heading for the door. He still couldn't quite speak, but he didn't want her to leave, so he scrambled for the door and got in front of it just as she was about to reach the doorknob.

Her hand landed on his hip instead, and she gave him a quizzical look. He put his own hand on top of hers and gripped tight. "Don't go."

She said nothing, she gave him a small simle, flipped off the lights, and led him back to the bed again. And this time she laid down beside him. They weren't touching, and it was too dark to see much, but he could hear steady breathing, and feel the bed shift when she moved. If he turned his head he could smell her, a strange but not unpleasant combination of flight suit leather and outdoors. He fell asleep far more easily than he thought he'd be able to.


	12. Chapter 12

When he woke up she was gone, but the water in his bathroom was running, and she came out as soon as he sat up.

"Hey. I used your toothbrush again. I would offer to go get you another one, but I thought that the first step to becoming a pilot should probably involve you learning to not be such a nancy boy."

_Ah_, thought Lee, _so we're done with the comforting, then_. But he couldn't help but smile at her. He thought this was probably her way of letting him know that she thought he could take it… becoming a pilot, yesterday's events, everything. It was good to know that she believed in him, at least.

Besides, she hadn't brushed her hair yet, and it was sticking up in a messy blond halo around her head. It would have been almost impossible not to smile at that.

He joined her on her morning run, and he was almost able to keep up. He knew he had some serious physical training to do over the summer, but at least he wasn't starting from sedentary, thanks to Kara and her pyramid games.

--------------------

She went back to her own room to shower, and he to his, and then they met up an hour later to go to the mess hall. Breakfast was almost over, and he'd thought that the hall would be mostly empty, but he'd forgotten than everyone else had gone out partying last night. They were probably all running late and nursing hangovers to boot.

Given the hangovers, he hadn't expected anyone to pay much attention to him. Instead, everyone turned when he and Kara walked in and sat down. He was greeted with silence and wary respect, and he recalled that the only time anyone had ever seen him in the sims had been with Kara, off-screen, and that last time had ended in a fight, a sure sign than he'd done something to upset her. And everyone knew nothing upset Kara Thrace more than losing.

Kara was greeted with enthusiastic congratulations on her assignment, and a few calls of "Hey, where were you last night?" mostly coming from Karl and his friends.

She winked at them and slung an arm around him. "I was sleeping my way to the top."

Lee choked on his orange juice, and she hit him on the back cheerfully. He didn't say anything though, because though he hadn't at all thought that this should be part of the plan, she knew these people. They probably didn't believe her—it was pretty obvious that she was joking, and his reaction had probably sealed the deal—but if she thought for some reason that this was going to help him fit in, well then, he wasn't going to stop her. Also, he'd heard that sometimes, if people said something enough, it became true for them. He wasn't at all adverse to that happening in Kara and his case.

In fact, he was kind of wondering how he was going to survive the summer without her. She'd told him a few weeks ago that she was spending the summer on Sagittaron. He'd almost gotten into a fight with her about it, but they were still too fragile at that point for him to push her, so he'd backed down. She was going to participate in a combat training and wilderness survival course that probably would have gotten her in trouble if any of her instructors found out about it. Sagittaron had quite a few courses like that: not military-sanctioned, and a bit on the rough side, from what Lee had heard. But they would teach her things that the Academy wouldn't, and unlike him, Kara was obviously made to be a soldier.

Up until yesterday, he had been planning to spend an utterly uneventful summer with his mother and Zak. Now he was planning on a lot of push-ups and pull-ups, and a lot of humiliating losses to Zak in the arcade sim programs near their house. Zak would be thrilled, which was something at least. Lee himself was less than excited.

-----------------------

When he said goodbye to Kara, he tried not to make a big deal out of it, but she didn't seem to want to go along with his charade.

"I'll see you soon, Kara. Try not to die on Sagittaron."

"You're coming back next year, right?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" He'd never even considered not coming back. The Academy was the best institution for what he wanted to do, and all the others would require money that his mother didn't have and his father wouldn't give him. Besides, if he quit, his father would win.

"Just, if you change your mind… well. Nevermind." Kara was almost never tentative, but for some reason he seemed to be bringing it out in her lately.

"No, what?"

She bit her lip and looked away, which meant that she was serious. "Write me? If you're not coming back, that is. Mail comes once or twice a month to the training camp."

"Okay. But Kara, I'm not leaving."

"Just in case. I want to know."

"Well, alright."

"Alright. Looking forward to not hearing from you." That seemed more like the normal, brash Kara that he saw so often, but then she ruined it again by pulling him into a hug that left his ribs protesting. Her head fit perfectly into the crook of his neck and shoulder, and he didn't want to let go.

There were a lot of things he didn't want to do this summer, but hopefully none of them would be quite as hard as watching her walk out of the dorms, Sagittaron-bound.


	13. Chapter 13

He'd come home for the summer and without Kara to keep him grounded, the rage boiled up again. This sort of thing hadn't really happened to him since he was little, when he'd responded to the divorce by trying to beat up as many school bullies as possible. He'd been too short though, and getting knocked around certainly hadn't made him feel any better.

Although fighting had had its high points. He hadn't been able to hurt his father directly, which had frustrated him to no end. Hurting people like him had been the next best thing. He couldn't do much to hurt his father directly at this point either, but indirectly was sounding better and better. To that end, he told his mother exactly what had happened on assignment day. She wired his dad and they had a screaming fight. It accomplished nothing, except to make his mother cry and remind Lee of the divorce.

Then Zak came home from school and started talking non-stop. When it eventually came out that Lee was going to be a pilot, Zak grinned and congratulated him.

"I always knew you'd see the light!"

"I haven't. Dad kind of saw the light for me."

"What do you mean?"

Zak loved him. He'd been unsure of many people's love over the years, but Zak had always hung on his every word. Lee was pretty sure that if Zak got on the wireless, his father would have a hard time remaining unmoved; after all, Zak was his favorite, his hope for the future, and an Adama worthy of the name. Lee was also pretty sure that if he told Zak about assignment day in all its terrible detail, Zak probably would make a call.

In the end he couldn't do it. Not to Zak. Zak was a child, for all his new height and broadened shoulders. Lee wasn't going to take his father away from him. Nothing was worth that.

"Nothing. It's just, I wasn't planning on being a pilot, and I haven't put in any sim time, really. I'm going to need you to go to the arcades with me this summer. A lot."

Zak looked like his birthday had come early, and Lee thought that maybe the summer wasn't going to be so bad after all.

-------------

Then he actually went to the arcade with Zak, and the 12 year old boys who frequented the place laughed at him, and even Zak was kind of wincing at how bad he was.

"Lee, you've gotta relax. If you've got a death-grip on the stick it slows your reaction time."

"I really don't think my reaction time matters when I'm still having a hard time keeping left and right straight. Do you think there's possibly a way to pilot these things without having to turn upside-down? It just kind of seems like something that nature definitely did not intend."

"That's the beauty of it! Defying gravity! Come on, Lee. Let's do the obstacle course again. Relax a bit more and I'll bet you'll make it at least to the halfway mark without crashing into anything."

If it had been Kara saying that, it would have been said with absolute derision. Zak was sincere though, earnest enough that it made Lee cringe. He could appreciate, abstractly, the idea of flying being beautiful. How could he not, after having seen Kara in the sims? He couldn't feel it, however, and what he was doing was certainly a far cry from mastery and grace.

--------------

Despite how much Lee loved having his kid brother around, the flying was draining on him, to the point where he was almost relieved to drop Zak off at a training camp for a few weeks. It was of those pre-academy deals that Lee had never bothered with because they were designed for those who wanted to be pilots.

The officer checking Zak in was a woman about his mother's age, with dull blue eyes and hair the color of straw. The only reason he'd paid her any attention at all was because of a vicious kick she'd aimed at one of the camp cats when it prowled under her table looking for shade. The cat was fine; apparently used to this particular woman, but it had put Lee on edge. Not that that took much these days.

The woman was obviously unhappy, utterly bored with her appointed task, a sharp contrast to the excited would-be cadets around her. Lee was going to have to be careful for the next few years. If being a pilot didn't agree with him, or if his plan failed, he didn't want to end up like that.

He turned away. He loved watching people, and she was the only one standing still enough for observation, but even so, he wasn't interested in studying bitterness. He had enough of that of his own.

And she handed Zak some papers and said in a monotone, "Good afternoon, I'm Socrata Thrace, welcome to Caprica Prep" and Lee went from uninterested to interested in a hurry. His head snapped up, and he knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it. She looked nothing like Kara.

Sure, there might have been some resemblance in the hair and the nose, but it still wasn't enough to convince him that this tired, apathetic woman was in any way related to his friend.

"Do you want something?"

Ah. Direct to the point of being rude. Maybe they were related after all.

"Do you have a daughter?"

He was hoping she'd say no, but that would require something to be going right for a change, so clearly he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up.

"Ah. At the Academy are you? Kara's your fair-weather friend is she? Or is she sleeping with you?"

"Neither," Lee said, and was surprised to hear his voice come out as cold and sharp as the woman in front of him.

"If you say so. You'd best stay away from her though. She's not worth knowing, and nothing but trouble."

Lee almost said, _I can see where she gets it from_ but the opposite was true. He had no idea how someone as alive as Kara could have been raised by someone like this.

"Ungrateful brat," Kara's mother continued. "She didn't even tell me where she was going for the summer. I got her into the Academy, and this is how she repays me."

_She's on another __planet_, Lee wanted to say. _I didn't want her to go, but now I think I understand why she did. _Instead he turned away and made sure Zak had completed his forms.

"Goodbye Medea," he told Kara's mother. He didn't turn around to see whether or not she had caught the reference. For a moment, he wished the gods were real, if only so that they could smite Socrata Thrace. Then he wondered if she was the one who had taught Kara the names of the pantheon, and he wished he hadn't thought of religion at all. His childhood would have been ten times worse if his father had had the force of the gods behind him. He couldn't even begin to imagine what Kara's would have been like.

He had a sudden urge to write to her, tell her that he'd seen her mother. Let her know somehow that he understood now. That he would have gone away too rather than be near a woman like that. Except if Kara got mail she'd probably assume that it was because he wasn't coming back to the Academy. Besides, he wasn't quite sure what to say. "I saw your mother. She's a bitch" might not go over well, and he couldn't think of any other way to say it.


	14. Chapter 14

He spent the rest of the summer doggedly failing at the sims, and working out. It had occurred to him that perhaps he was trying to drown his troubles in adrenaline. It was too bad that it wasn't anywhere near as potent without Kara close by. In fact, nothing seemed as potent without Kara close by. The summer passed in a muted haze: sweat and leather jump seats, Zak's chatter and his mother's cooking. He ran every morning in the fields around their home, and counted down the days to the start of the semester.

--------------------------

When he finally got to come back to the academy for opening ceremonies, he got stared at, a lot. Mostly by girls. He'd packed on a few pounds of solid muscle over the summer, and his morning runs had resulted in a darker tan than he'd ever had before. His mother, in a particularly sour mood one day, had said that it made him look more like his father.

Zak had grumbled about genetics and unfairness, and whined that he never put on muscle mass that quickly, but then again, Zak thought that Lee'd hung the moon since he was twelve.

The looks he was getting now were making him a bit apprehensive, not to mention reminding him of the reason why he liked to study and not be studied. They made him feel like a lab specimen. They were frankly predatory too, and they kind of made Lee want to hide. Or find Kara. He was pretty sure most of the female cadets were scared of Kara… he was kind of scared of Kara sometimes… and also, he wanted to see how she would react to his new and apparently improved physique.

He saw her before she saw him, and something inside him snapped back into focus. She looked good. A little more muscular than she'd been when she left, and perhaps a little too thin. A tiny little paternal part of him started cursing at her training camp, which clearly hadn't fed her enough, but it shut itself up as soon as she made eye contact. Probably because all thought went out of his brain and he was left with anxiety and glee all mixed up together. He was acting like a schoolboy with his first crush. He knew it was pathetic, but he couldn't _help_ it, damn it. He wondered if he was actually going to be tongue-tied when she came over and talked to him, and watched her even more closely, trying to guess what she would say.

She started cheerfully elbowing people out of the way to get to him, but that wasn't all that unusual for Kara. She was looking at him, again not that unusual, but there seemed to be pride and sadness all mixed up in her gaze.

"You didn't find a way to reverse your old man's decision, then." It wasn't a question, but he answered anyway.

"No." There. Words were coming out. He was proud of himself.

"So you decided to take it like a man." That was said with a poke to his newly formed biceps. So she had noticed then. Excellent.

"I guess."

"Oh, how very decisive of you. We're going to have to work on that if you want to survive with the viper jocks."

Lee smiled at her. He didn't know what he'd been so nervous about a few minutes ago. This wasn't difficult at all. This was _Kara_. Besides, he was plenty decisive, and they both knew it. He was just… quiet about it, which would probably take some time for the other flight cadets to realize. Until then, well, "I thought perhaps you could be decisive enough for the both of us, and I could just sort of sit back and agree with you."

"Yes, that's a brilliant idea, oh academic one. Hiding behind someone is a sure way to gain the respect of others." It was said with a smile, but there was still a bit of bite to it.

_I don't want their respect_, thought Lee. _I just want them to leave me alone_. The sentiment must have shown through on his face, because Kara reached out and curled a hand around his arm. "I'm glad you came back," she said, and he realized that she had actually been questioning whether she was going to see him again. Even though he hadn't written. Even though he'd told her all along that he wasn't leaving the academy. Even though what he'd really meant when he said that was that he wasn't leaving her.

Female cadets were lurking, and Kara was trying to hide the relief that she felt at having him back, but it was showing through in all sorts of little ways—the strength of her grip, the tension that had left her shoulders—and Lee decided, to hell with it, and pulled her into a crushing hug.

Kara kind of… melted, which was just about the best thing to happen to Lee since, well, since the last time they'd done this. He muttered into her hair, "I missed you, and also I think those women over there want to have their wicked way with me, and I'm using you as a human shield." He could feel her laughter vibrating through his body, and it was an amazing sensation. Amazing enough that he had to let go a little earlier than he wanted to.

--------------------------

He sat next to Kara during opening ceremonies. She mocked Admiral Scott's address in whispered tones, and by the end Lee had no idea what he had actually said. He could remember perfectly, though, the way Kara's lips moved as she whispered.

Those speeches were all the same anyway. He'd only ever listened because he'd been interested in the psychology behind them. The appeals to duty and responsibility in particular. He wondered how many people were here for any of those reasons. It was rather troubling to realize that of all his class, in some twisted way, he was perhaps the closest embodiment of the ideals the Admiral was droning on about. He wasn't here for glory, or blood. He was here to do a job, plain and simple, and he was going to do it as well as he knew how.


	15. Chapter 15

He wasn't here for glory, or blood. He was here to do a job, plain and simple, and he was going to do it as well as he knew how.

Following through on that would have been a lot easier if second year had been safe and familiar like first year, but it wasn't. He was still allowed to keep up with his history classes, for which he was extraordinarily grateful, but everything else had changed completely.

There was sim time. And training missions. And common bunk rooms, which was perhaps the most difficult thing of all to get used to. Their instructors had said something about fostering togetherness or some such rot. Lee was of the opinion that they would all get along much better if they didn't have to live on top of each other. Although perhaps that was just him being bitter because he hadn't been put together with Kara.

Instead, he ended up bunked with three other second years. It almost drove him crazy the first few weeks, before he learned to cope. He'd never had roommates before. He'd never realized how incredibly fortunate he'd been.

He'd thought at the beginning that he might have a bit of trouble with his two male roommates. History lessons meant that he didn't have time to party, and they'd given him a hard time about it at first. Then Kara had taken them out for a night. Lee had no idea what she'd said to them, but it clearly left an impression, because they stopped ribbing him. She must have mentioned something about that day in hack and triad games, because both men had privately asked him for betting advice on more than one occasion.

His female roommate, Sam, was a different story. There was certainly no danger that she was going to heckle him. She was tiny, and bubbly, and perhaps a bit airheaded as well. Not at all a stereotypical viper jock, but she had quick reflexes and incredibly sharp eyes. She also had a bit of a crush on him. It was flattering the first few days, and then increasingly annoying after that.

The best way to establish the illusion of privacy in the bunkroom was to treat the flimsy bed curtains as if they were unbreachable, soundproof barriers. If your curtains were drawn, no one disturbed you. If for some reason they absolutely had to tell you something, yelling outside the curtain was acceptable. Opening it was not. Sam kept on opening his curtain. He'd tried, politely, to ask her to knock, but she'd just giggle and ignore him. He mentioned it to Kara, and she said something about him being a big boy, and more than capable of dealing with 90lb girls.

The next day though, after their pyramid game, she disappeared instead of waiting in line for the showers. Lee didn't think much of it until, finished with his own shower, he padded back to his bunkroom and opened the door to find Sam holding back his bedcurtain, and staring at his bunk in shock.

"Hey," came a low, inviting voice from his bed. "Looking for a good time?"

Lee broke out in goose bumps. Sam turned a deep red, squealed in horror, and almost ran into him in her haste to exit.

As soon as she was gone, he had a clear view of Kara, still sweaty from the match, lying on his bed nothing but shorts and a sports bra. He had intended to say "huh?" but the sound that came out of his mouth was stunned and garbled.

When she sauntered out of the room (he was fairly certain that was just to rile him up… she didn't normally walk like that did she? Or was it just that her stride looked different when her legs were barely covered?) one of his roommates gave a low whistle.

"I don't get it. You never go out. You don't even talk that much. How is it that you keep on getting all the girls?"

Lee might have protested, but his mind was still stuck on all that _skin_. "Just lucky, I guess" was the best that he could come up with.

It was the truth though. He was lucky. Especially since Kara wasn't just putting in a good word for him with the boys, or scaring off girls with lesbian innuendo, she was also helping him in the sims. And he needed it. Desperately.

-----------------------------------

Against all odds, she turned out to be a steady and patient teacher. Or, well, perhaps 'teacher' wasn't the right word, since she wasn't instructing so much as she was proselytizing: slowly and carefully revealing the sacred ways of flying. She loved to fly, put everything she had into it. Most other things she did, she did with bravado, shielding the fact that underneath she wasn't quite sure of herself. But flying was different. When she flew, she was _sure_. As if whatever it was that had given her reason to doubt herself (and after meeting Socrata Thrace, Lee had his suspicions) sloughed off her the moment she broke free of gravity.

Furthermore, she was devoted. He had expected her to fly by instinct, and look down on the mechanics and particulars as of little importance, but she said the words 'Pitch' and 'Yaw' with the same reverence and intimacy that she'd used when she recited the names of the gods. By midterm exams, he knew every part of a viper by heart.

He was still having trouble flying though. He wanted a steady point of reference, which was something that was hard to come by when he was flipping about in zero gravity. One day as he was failing at a simple obstacle course, Kara crammed herself into his sim cockpit so that she could see exactly how his hands were moving. She'd yelled, "bank left!" and he'd run right into an asteroid.

"Which left?!?" He'd yelled, frustrated and desperate. This course was on their midterm practicals, and he'd yet to get through it successfully.

"You only have one left, Lee."

"But then I flip over or switch directions, and it changes."

"No, it doesn't. Your left hand is still your left hand, no matter what position you happen to be in. This isn't Caprica. This isn't even a heliocentric universe. You can't fly with a compass. You're your own point of reference, Lee. You're standing still. Everything's revolving around you."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"There's no gravity. Direction at all makes no sense, so just bear with me here. You're standing still. You're pulling and pushing the world outside, bringing it forward and back, until you get where you want to be. Don't think of it as flying an obstacle course, think of the course as coming to you."

"I repeat, that doesn't make any…"

"Just try it."

And he had. And it had worked, after a fashion. His reaction times were still a little slow, and he mostly got through the course by following Kara's shouted instructions, but still. It was a hell of a lot better than anything he'd done up until that point.


End file.
